All in the Family featured the curmudgeonly Archie Bunker. Archie was television’s most famous grouch, blunt, blustering, straightforward and untouched by the PC crowd. He was the archetype of the conservative male. Michael desprately tried to reeducate him, but he persisted in his breviloquence.

12/31/2013

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician
has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child
to the hospital in an ambulance.

Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters
in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came
in about a child having seizures.

A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an
ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.

Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man
injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to
that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond
to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.

Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15
minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules
requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into
the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the
child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital.

Rules are made for a reason. Sometimes its for good reasons and sometimes for whatever reason. I'm sure in this case we don't have all the facts. The dept. captain is saying that there is more to the story than it appears. That could very well be true, I don't know. It could also be true that Stephen Sawyer had been a pain in the butt and that's why they dinged him as hard as they did with a 60 day suspension. It seems like they wanted him out, and being a rash young kid that's exactly what he gave them.

Looking at the facts this whole situation is just plain dumb.

Fact #1. A more experienced EMT was on the scene with the child that was having problems. That EMT made the decision that they needed transport to the hospital.

Fact #2. Sawyer exhausted all other avenues to provide transport before he personally took the kid to the hospital.

Fact #3. If you are the captain, and you hate this kids guts and he is the biggest screw up in the history of EMT's and you have thousands of great reasons to kick him off the squad: THE KID DID THE RIGHT THING.

Fact #4. There isn't a sick person, or the parent of a sick kid in the world, who when they need an ambulance give a damn if the guy driving it is over 21. They only know and care that he get them medical help in time to save them.

Fact #5. There is no way in the world that you can pounce on this kid, even though he broke the rules, and not look like an ass for doing it.

Fact #6. Even if the Capitan is 100% in the right, the news media isn't going to paint him in a good light and there is no way the department can win the publicity game until the community forgets about the matter.

Looking at this from an organizational perspective, what actions would have produced a better result?

1. Temper the punishment for breaking the rules with a pat on the back for saving the kid.

2a. Make the punishment less harsh. Most people would accept a 2 week suspension as a reasonable consequence. Two months seems overly vindictive and unreasonable given the circumstances.
2b. Maybe even "suspend" the punishment altogether, but leave a written warning on his record about adhering to departmental policy.

3. If the kid quit anyway, the first words out of your mouth should have been; "we wanted him to stay but he wanted to quit..." That way the employee looks like a hot head. Unfortunately that 2 month suspension does make it look like you have an axe to grind.

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital.

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital.

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital.

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital

An upstate New York volunteer emergency medical technician has been suspended after breaking the rules to drive a sick four-year-old child to the hospital in an ambulance.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was at the rescue squad’s headquarters in Ellenville, N.Y., with another EMT and an ambulance driver, when a call came in about a child having seizures.
A paramedic already at the child’s home asked for an ambulance, reports New York’s Times Herald-Record.
Two minutes later, another call came in about an elderly man injured in a fall. Sawyer advised the ambulance at the station to respond to that call, not realizing no other emergency vehicles were available to respond to the child’s home, according to the Daily Freeman.
Sawyer called four ambulance services over the next 15 minutes, but but all were busy or too far away to respond. Despite squad rules requiring ambulance drivers to be 21 years old or older, Sawyer climbed into the ambulance himself, drove the five miles to the child’s house and took the child, his mother and the paramedic to Ellenville Regional Hospital

12/24/2013

Some companies hire people whose entire function is to keep the companies image "politically correct" and to steer the company away from making huge PR mistakes. Sometimes these employees do a good job, and sometimes they need to be fired because they are so brain dead that they can't function. For example Cracker Barrel and the decision to ditch the Duck Dynasty merchandise.

I suspect that a case can be made that selling Duck Dynasty (DD) merchandise really just adds to A&E's bottom line since the Robertson's don't own the rights to it. So you could claim that not selling the stuff was a way of supporting Phil. This would have been a total lie, but you could make that case.

What really happened was some women most likely the VP in charge of PR, Feeling Important and Socially Acceptable crap that has nothing to do with running restaurants, decided that Phil Robertson's remarks made her feel bad. Because she felt bad, that makes Phil a bad guy, so he must really be a homophobic racist like they said. How anyone working at a company with a racist name like "cracker barrel" comes off with such a feeling of superiority is beyond me.

So despite the fact that 1) no one cared that Cracker Barrel sold DD junk and 2) A&E was involved in a PR nightmare because they decided to sabotage the biggest money TV show that a cable channel ever had and 3) millions of Americans that don't give a crap about a bunch of rednecks that look like ZZ Top rejects, were rallying to the side of the latest victims of the anti-American culture war; the marketing genius at Cracker Barrel decided to jump in, with both feet on the wrong side of an issue that they had no stake in.

For those of you who don't know on Friday Cracker Barrel announced it was dropping some of its DD merchandise. This was meant to look like a support of the pro-Butt Sex crowd. By Sunday night Cracker Barrel changed it mind. According to the company:

Customer outcry, the company said, forced it to reevaluate its decision to stop carrying merchandise from the popular reality TV show after controversial comments made by the show's star in a recent magazine interview.

"You told us we made a mistake," the company said on its Facebook page. "And, you weren't shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings. You flat out told us we were wrong. We listened. Today, we are putting all our Duck Dynasty products back in our stores."

Does anyone know what day of the week Cracker Barrel makes a ton of its sales? It's Sunday. Specifically Sunday from 11:00 am to 2 pm. This is an oddity in the restaurant world. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights are the big money makers for most eateries. Sunday lunch is as big for Cracker Barrel as a weekend night and in some locations its bigger. So the news comes out Friday that Cracker Barrel is siding A&E against the Duck boys. There is a pretty good number of people already worked up since Phil got fired because he said he likes vagina better than some mans hairy ass. Folks got themselves tuned into this story. That's just the time that Cracker Barrel started dis'n straight white people and hate'n heterosexuals.

Here is what I think happened. Friday night was a little slow as the word started getting around about cracker barrel. Saturday sales slacked off even more. By the time the Sunday eat'n out after church crowd found out that Cracker Barrel is run by a bunch of closet homosexual agenda pushing, liberal, nut cases, they decided to eat someplace else. I think sales took a hit this weekend. Cracker Barrel, a nominally southern company, learned a lesson fast. People who like to eat ham steaks, biscuits gravy, and pecan pie after church on Sunday ain't big on supporting butt sex.

I don't think a letter campaign had anything to do with Cracker Barrel changing its mind. I don't think Cracker Barrel has changed its mind, they still believe speaking out against boy on boy butt sex is wrong. They just figured out that they don't have a dog in this fight and publicly rooting against the favorite is bad for business.

12/23/2013

I was doing some
last-minute Christmas shopping in a toy store and decided to look at Barbie
dolls for my nieces. A nicely dressed little girl was excitedly looking through
the Barbie dolls as well, with a roll of money clamped tightly in her little
hand. When she came upon a Barbie she liked, she would turn and ask her father
if she had enough money to buy it.

He usually said "yes," but she would keep looking and keep going
through their ritual of "do I have enough?" As she was looking, a
little boy wandered in across the aisle and started sorting through the Pokemon
toys. He was dressed neatly, but in clothes that were obviously rather worn,
and wearing a jacket that was probably a couple of sizes too small. He too had
money in his hand, but it looked to be no more than five dollars or so at the
most. He was with his father as well, and kept picking up the Pokemon video toys.
Each time he picked one up and looked at his father, his father shook his head,
"No."

The little girl had apparently chosen her Barbie, a beautifully dressed,
glamorous doll that would have been the envy of every little girl on the block.
However, she had stopped and was watching the interchange between the little
boy and his father. Rather dejectedly, the boy had given up on the video games
and had chosen what looked like a book of stickers instead. He and his father
then started walking through another aisle of the store.

The little girl put her Barbie back on the shelf, and ran over to the Pokemon
games. She excitedly picked up one that was lying on top of the other toys, and
raced toward the check-out, after speaking with her father. I picked up my
purchases and got in line behind them. Then, much to the little girl's obvious
delight, the little boy and his father got in line behind me.

After the toy was paid for and bagged, the little girl handed it back to the
cashier and whispered something in her ear. The cashier smiled and put the
package under the counter.

I paid for my purchases and was rearranging things in my purse when the little
boy came up to the cashier. The cashier rang up his purchases and then said,
"Congratulations, you are my hundredth customer today, and you win a
prize!" With that, she handed the little boy the Pokemon game, and he
could only stare in disbelief. It was, he said, exactly what he had wanted!

The little girl and her father had been standing at the doorway during all of
this, and I saw the biggest, prettiest, toothless grin on that little girl that
I have ever seen in my life. Then they walked out the door, and I followed
close behind them. As I walked back to my car in amazement over what I had just
witnessed, I heard the father ask his daughter why she had done that. I'll
never forget what she said to him.

"Daddy, didn't Nana and PawPaw want me to buy something that would make me
happy?"

He said, "Of course they did, honey."

To which the little girl replied, "Well, I just did!"

With that, she giggled and started skipping toward their car. Her toothless
grin said it all. Apparently, she had decided on the answer to her own question
of, "Do I have enough?"

I feel very privileged to have witnessed the true spirit of Christmas in that
toy store, in the form of a little girl who understands more about the reason
for the season than most adults I know!

Written by Sharon PalmerFrom Res Ipsa:This story arrived in my email box via a list serve that I belong to. I have no idea who Sharon Palmer is nor could I ascertain for certain doing a web search how to contact her. I have republished this story without permission in the full form I received it in. If the author objects, I will remove the post. Given the large number of other places it is published on the web, I assume it is in the public domain.

12/22/2013

12/19/2013

Christmas memories come in different shades. I remember different special and some not so special things from Christmas and Christmas times. Some traditions that I hated as a kid, I've come to have a special regard for as an adult. Then of course there is food. My mom used to make dozens of different kinds of Christmas cookies every year. That was one of those wonderful traditions. The flip side of that was the tradition of ground up soup for Christmas eve. I hated that soup as a kid, but I'll probably go to the store and get the ingredients to make it latter on today or tomorrow. Somehow its part of Christmas.

The boomers were probably the first generation to make TV part of their Christmas tradition. When I was a kid there were all kinds of Christmas specials between Thanksgiving and Christmas on TV. I have no idea how many times I've seen "It's a Wonderful Life", or the different Charlie Brown specials. Every year as a kid they played Bob Hope a lot. Sometimes they had several different movies that he was in on during the week. Sometimes they played these goofy specials with a lot of singing and dancing and other stuff that grown ups seemed to enjoy. We only had 4 channels back then and dad got to chose what was watched so you could watch it and like it, or go to bed early. IF you wanted to fuss about it, you got to go to bed early with a spanking. So Bob Hope it was.

As a kid I remembering thinking, "what did Bob Hope ever do to be included in my Christmas?".

Bob Hope and his traveling USO group spent WWII traveling the world. Day in and day out they gave up their time and bigger bucks in Hollywood to get loaded in and out of military transports, to go and do a show for guys that were bored, scared and waiting for something to happen. In 1944 Bob's show had been working their tails off for the entire war. They were tired and they had earned a couple of days off. A morale officer approached Mr. Hope, would they do a show for the 1st Marines? Those boys had never had a show before, and they were going to invade a place called Palau. Nobody had ever heard of Palau before. Afterwards it would be remembered as the most difficult battle of WWII. Believing that as many of half the boys would be dead shortly after the show, Hope saddled up his troops and made them laugh, cry, remember home and what they were fighting for.

Some songs may have seemed overly sentimental. The skits could have been better. The jokes may have been corny. There were times that more than half the guys couldn't hear the band because the PA sucked. The girls? Some of the girls were just plain all American cute. Some of the girls were some of the hottest women in the world in their day. Some of the girls were famous and some were fill in dancers, but they were all what our boys called DAMES! They were glad to see them.

After the war Hope kept doing the USO shows. WWII finished but then there was Korea and then Vietnam. Bob Hope could have made better money if he stayed in Hollywood instead of doing the USO. Hollywood didn't make him a star. Doing his best for boys that he knew would be dead in hours or days did that.

12/18/2013

As part of an unusual experiment, the husband was instructed to “agree with his wife’s every opinion and request without complaint,” and to continue doing so “even if he believed the female participant was wrong,” according to a report on the research that was published Tuesday by the British Medical Journal.

The husband and wife were helping a trio of doctors test their theory that pride and stubbornness get in the way of good mental health. In their own medical practices in New Zealand, they had observed patients leading “unnecessarily stressful lives by wanting to be right rather than happy.” If these patients could just let go of the need to prove to others that they were right, would greater happiness be the result?

Enter the intrepid husband. Based on the assumption that men would rather be happy than be right, he was told to agree with his wife in all cases. However, based on the assumption that women would rather be right than be happy, the doctors decided not to tell the wife why her husband was suddenly so agreeable.

It’s not clear how long the experiment was intended to last, but it came to an abrupt halt on Day 12.

“By then the male participant found the female participant to be increasingly critical of everything he did,” the researchers reported. The husband couldn’t take it anymore, so he made his wife a cup of tea and told her what had been going on.

That led the researchers to terminate the study.

Over the 12 days of the experiment, the husband’s quality of life plummeted from a baseline score of 7 all the way down to 3. The wife started out at 8 and rose to 8.5 by Day 6. She had no desire to share her quality of life with the researchers on Day 12, according to the report.

Still, the team was able to draw some preliminary conclusions.

They also noted that “the availability of unbridled power adversely affects the quality of life of those on the receiving end.”

Let's break it down:

They thought that agreeing with the wife would make her, and thus, by association him, happy.

What really happened is it turned her into such a raving bitch that he couldn't take it any more.

Thus ended "a scientific" study.

Here it is America: Women in positions of power abuse that power. It doesn't matter if she is your mother, your girlfriend, your wife, your daughter or your boss. If she thinks she has the upper hand in the relationship she will abuse it. In this "study" the women was given the tiny tiniest bit of unwarranted superiority. She probably didn't even know what had changed in the relationship. In the quaint views of the researchers: “the availability of unbridled power adversely affects the quality of life of those on the receiving end.”

That as any overly mothered male child, hen pecked husband or fool working for a female boss will tell you, is an understatement.

I've been noticing for some time that getting good solid news in the US is next to impossible. This isn't a rehash of the Clinton News Network CNN vs FOX from the 90's. It's not about Rush vs NPR. I've noticed for the last several years, thanks to the internet, most of the important news comes from alternative sources, or foreign ones. A reader of a London paper will normally have a better idea of the facts of a current event in the USA than someone utilizing American news outlets. He will also have a better understanding of the most recent Royal wardrobe malfunction/baby outing/adulterous affair/dental exam, etc ad nauseum. It's gotten so bad that even the Russian's are scooping American news.

A leading American expert on climate change and the Environmental Protection Agency’s highest-paid employee, deserves to spend 30 months behind bars for lying to his bosses about being a CIA spy to avoid doing his real job, US federal prosecutors say.

Wrongo. If he didn't do any EPA work, he probably helped America more than the harm he did. Yes he cost us over a million bucks, but the EPA costs America more than that every minute of every day they operate.

Prosecutors described John Beale’s actions as “crimes of massive proportion” that were “offensive” to those who actually work for the CIA, NBC reported.

Like the CIA hasn't been robing the tax payer blind for decades, and its all "top secret" so we aren't allowed to know what they are wasting money on.

Beale pled guilty in September, and has been accused of major fraud of almost $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade.

I wonder what kind of a deal he got for that.

When first questioned by EPA officials early in 2013 about his alleged CIA undercover work, Beale brushed them off by saying he couldn’t discuss it, according to Sullivan.

The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

The two sentencing memos and other documents on the trial present new details of the case that’s been branded one of the most audacious and creative federal frauds in history.

Social security still has it beat.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, How could this possibly have happened in this agency? I’ve worked for the government for 35 years. I’ve never seen a situation like this,” Patrick Sullivan told NBC News.

Really Pat, in 35 years you've never seen the American tax payer get screwed out of a million bucks. Maybe what you mean is, we never got off that easy before.

One of the most important points raised by the investigation was that why it took the EPA administration so long to start looking into Beale’s grandiose stories.

Maybe that's because there really is a joint CIA environmental working group, ENMOD.

“There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing. They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting,” Sullivan said.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

It was revealed that Beale publicly retired, but kept getting his salary for another year and a half, with his expense vouchers approved by his colleague whose conduct is now looked into.

That's nothing Congress quit being useful in 1913 and they've been collecting a check and screwing us for a hundred years now.

So why did he keep getting his check for the last year? Maybe its gross governmental incompetence, maybe not. Why did his expense vouchers keep getting paid? Was his buddy slipping him some Obama stimulus money on the side like they are hinting at? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he was getting paid because he really was pushing the administrations mission like a good little paper shuffler.

So why did the EPA believe the lie, if it really was a lie? Are they that stupid? Well they have been believing, funding and pushing global warming, so who knows? I think the reason they believed Beal is because the CIA really is doing work with environmental modification research with an eye on weaponization. Before you jump to the conclusion that I'm a lunar landing denial, fluoride in the water, anti-immunization, JFK's murder was a plot (OK it was) tin foil hat wearing member of the American Conspiracy Theorist Club, ACTC for short, I'm not. Mostly because nobody trusts anybody else to maintain the members list, but that's another story.

Maybe the bureaucrats at the EPA believed that Beal was working on environmental stuff with the CIA, is because the CIA is working on those kinds of projects. Maybe, just maybe, one of the EPA top guns on the environment would be tasked for that kind of work. Maybe the reason his expense vouchers were approved and kept getting approved without scrutiny, was because someone wanted it that way.

Is Beal a crook? Maybe. This is the Obama Administration and in the words of the Moody Blues, "what the truth is, I can't tell anymore". Maybe the truth wasn't supposed to come out, or maybe Beal pissed in somebodies Wheaties. Who knows?

12/14/2013

12/13/2013

To be most fertile, the soil must first be torn up; and shall not thy soul accept suffering for the sake of better growth.

Better to think wrongly with your own head, than to think rightly with the head of another.

Few can tell what they know without also showing what they do not know.

Ivan Panin

﻿

I have eclectic interests. Frankly I have no idea why something strikes my fancy in the first place. Sometimes these little intellectual rabbit trails that I go down are quite contrary to something that I would normally have an interest in. For instance, mathematics. I never particularly enjoyed math in school. Sure I struggled through and passed, but I never was interested in it beyond finishing the class and getting on with life. If it wasn't for computers doing the heavy lifting for me, math and activities that require math would still be a source of frustration for me.

Lately, math has become very interesting to me. This strikes me as most odd for several reasons. What's even more odd is that that what interests me is "hard math". My first awaking to the adventure in math started when I got serious about long range shooting. Suddenly trigonometry became a useful subject for me. Fortunately there are computer programs for that and I was saved from any real need to work it out with my pencil. Most recently quantum physics, regression methodology, calculus and probability statistics are suddenly topics of interest and study. The first thing I learned was that I should have been paying better attention in the 7th through 10 grades, but I already knew that.

On my little adventure I "met" a man whose scholarship simply blows me away. This scholar was born in 1855. As a youth he was exiled from his home land for plotting to overthrow his king. When he showed up at Harvard in 1878, he had no real academic credentials. He claimed to be "self educated" and they let him in. He graduated Harvard in 4 years and soon became one of the worlds foremost authorities in his field of Literary Criticism. In his capacity as a literary authority, he traveled extensively and was highly sought after and compensated. During this period of his life, he became somewhat famously known for his agnostic and nihilistic philosophical positions.

Then inexplicably he became a Christian. This was considered so odd an event that it was newsworthy in its day, it even made the headlines of some newspapers.

Because of his conversion to Christianity he began to read the bible. One day he discovered that there seemed to be certain numeric patterns that repeated themselves in scripture. That initial discovery launched a 50 year project where he investigated the mathematical evidence for divine inspiration of scripture. The man who did this was Ivan Panin.

In my reading I discovered that no one has ever disproved his theorems, or the math behind his discovery of heptadic biblical structure. Which led me down another rabbit trail. If this man's work, over 50 years of his life and over 40,000 pages of original research, is so amazing why isn't he talked about and lauded by Christendom? After all he didn't just define the heptadic tradition, he also discovered a great many other "bible number codes" that are textually definitive.

I haven't looked at all 40,000 pages of his work, nor am I a Greek and Hebrew linguist. However I believe I have discovered, at least part of the problem. First off there is his math. Frankly no one has discovered any serious math errors. They don't exist. This may be in part due to the fact that the math is seldom harder than basic addition/subtraction, multiplication/division and some probability statistics. Next is his methodology. That is pretty much solid as well, with a couple of exceptions I will deal with latter. The main reason we are not having a lively debate between believers and non-believers over the works of Ivan Panin, is the fault I believe of the Christian denominational scène.

Christian scripture consists of two main divisions, the old and new testaments. The old testament is basically a collection of scriptures that are (mostly) Jewish in origin and have a long history of Rabbinical supervision and authentication, as well as strictly professional standards for copying and translation. The rabbis had about an 1,800 year history of making sure their scripture was correct before the Christians ever came along. The new testament has a similar although not as long, history of textual diligence. However, there are minor differences in copies of texts and of text fragments that have survived to this day. Herein is the problem in scholarly Christian circles.

There are two 800 lb gorillas in Christian textual translation and criticism, they are textus receptus (think King James bible in English) and the translation work done under the name of Westcott and Hort (think NIV, RSV etc in English). For those of you who can't get enough of controversies involving dead languages: Westcott & Hort vs. Textus Receptus: Which is Superior? I'll let you decide the merits of the controversy.

Dr. Panin did what any thinking independent research should do, he followed his own way. This meant that sometimes he sided with Westcott and Hort, and sometimes he sided with textus receptus and sometimes, this is key, he sided with fragments of texts or less well received documents that maintained the heptadic structure. For the most part he used Westcott and Hort's work. This cost him support of the traditionalists. But if the numbers didn't back up Westcott & Hort, he'd side with the traditionalists, which cost him support among the revisers. If he couldn't verify the structure in either, he would use a less popular source document embraced sometimes by neither camp.

Mostly Panin used and sided with Westcott & Hort. One finial fly in that ointment, Westcott & Hort turned out to be occultists. Go ahead and let that sink in, the two main players in revising the bible into modern languages were involved in biblically prohibited satanic activity.

What I think happened is that in the beginning years of the last century Dr. Panin discovered and proved some very interesting things about the bible. However he was an independent sort of person with very little interest in denominational squabbles. Therefore he gathered no supporters while collecting a handful of influential critics who incidentally, were the gatekeepers of Christian seminary education. By the time of his death in 1942, no one came along with the same zeal as Dr. Panin to carry the torch and his scholarship was dutifully categorized and put on the shelf; where from time to time other scholars bump into it, dust it off and say to themselves "hey that's interesting why haven't I seen this before?"

So why aren't believers and non-believers hashing out the details of 40,000 plus pages of biblical math proofs? Well 40,000 pages is a lot and its math and dead languages and... you get the picture. I've not read all or even a significant portion of his work. However I have read some of the more popular and pointed examples. They are in a word compelling. I've also read a number of criticisms (from non believers) of Panin's bible numbers. Some of them are interesting, some of them simply beg the question, and some fall some place in between.

Without rehashing points found elsewhere, I'd like to post one criticism, if it is a criticism. The mathematics are as I have pointed out undoubtedly correct as the math itself is fairly simple. I believe you can do it all with a calculator or excel. Question/criticism that I wish I could pose to Dr. Panin has to do with his statistical analysis of the underling heptadic structure.

I'm not sure he set up his work properly.

That's right, the guy who had to retake several math classes over his life, just called one of Albert Einstein's math tutors method of establishing statistic probabilities into question. I can't tell you how to calculate the surface area of the two spheres that it takes to do that, but I can tell you that they are large and made of brass.

Here we go:

If I place a condition on a text that can be met by fulfilling 7 criteria, the odds of that happening randomly are 1 in 7. With me so far? Good. If I place a different stipulation that can be met by fulfilling an additional 7 criteria the odds of that happening are also 1 in 7. In order to combine the two conditions into one set of stipulations the odds become 1in 7x7 or 1 in 49. As I add heptadic stipulations the equation grows so that each new stipulation increases the multiple by another 7. Seven independent stipulations all being true, with a each having a probability of a 1 in 7 chance looks like this: 1 in (7x7x7x7x7x7x7)=823,543.

Dr. Panin has heptadic probabilities for some passages of scripture calculated out well into double digit exponents. My issue is with the dependence and independence of the of the individual heptadic stipulations. If each stipulation is truly independent in nature than his (very high) calculation of probability of randomness is correct. Incidentally that would make falsification of his hypothesis that math proves the divine nature of the bible, virtually impossibly from a statistical stand point. If I am correct and a portion of the heptadic stipulations are either a.) random therefore excludable or b.) dependent and therefor excludable, then Dr. Panin's calculations overstate the probabilities of randomness and therefor need to be recalculated and reevaluated.

OK there are about 6 of you who drop by that I know can rip me to shreds in the math department. Please rip away. I'd love to be proven wrong, since affirming Dr. Panin would be a huge apologetic victory. If you were to prove my doubt and rational to be incorrect, it would save me figuring out how to do my own proof. After all 43,000 pages of calculations is a lot and I don't know that I have 50 years of life left to do it. Granted a computer could help, but still its a big project.

12/10/2013

I've never been anti-cop. When it first came out, I thought NWA's "Fuk da Police" was the lashing out of hood rats who didn't want to assimilate into western civilization. Look at the some of the lyrics:

Punk police are afraid of me, huh
A young nigga on the warpath
And when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath
Of cops, dying in L.A

Smoke any motherfucker that sweats me
Or any asshole that threatens me
I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope
Taking out a cop or two, they can't cope with me

When the hook of the song is "fuck the police" repeated over and over, its not hard to see why cops would take the song's message personally. If I was a cop in Compton and NWA was blaring from a car's radio, I'd approach with extreme caution and be ready for the worst.

That's the way it was in the 90's in urban America.﻿ 20 years latter we live in a nation that enjoys the reality of a police culture that places "officer safety" at a premium and views "civil rights" as a quaint idea past it's time. It's not just cops messing with hood rats, now. Middle aged white guys get pulled over and have the drug dogs run through their truck on their way to Sunday school. Vets get gunned down outside of Costco. Texas man gets arrested for "rudely displaying a weapon". New York cops shoot two bystanders, then arrest a man and charge him with the assault of the people they shot.

A man who was firing a shotgun in his home has been killed in Iceland in what is believed to be the first time that a person has been shot dead by armed police in the country's history.

Iceland has had a armed police force for about 300 years. About 1/3 of the population owns firearms. Yet gun related violence and violent crime in general is rare. The difference between this story and most of the cop shootings in the US is that the guy in Iceland really had to earn his bullet. The 59-year-old Reykjavik man shot two cops before the police made the decision to take lethal action. The cops in Reykjavik only came out to arrest him after he was randomly shooting a gun out his window and threatening his neighbors. In other words, he wasn't doing something drastic like shopping or working on his sons boy scout merit badge.

The two police officers in Reykjavik that were shot in the incident are OK. The first officer was hit in his protective helmet and the second shot was blocked by a bullet proof riot shield. This is of course good news. No one wants to see unnecessary bloodshed, cop or civilian. In this case the bad guy got what he deserved and the good guys went home safe. It's as close to a win-win situation as the circumstances would permit.

From the news stories I've read, there is no hand wringing going on in Iceland over this event. Yes there is an investigation into it. The police chief didn't dodge reporters and newsmen, instead he issued a sincere, un-accusing and un-excusing statement that himself and his department are "deeply saddened" and "extend their condolences to the family". His statement is a mature and thoughtful way to handle a bad situation.

Back in the USA, "mature" and "thoughtful" aren't words you will hear used very frequently when describing police reaction to any form of scrutiny. On one hand we have an out of control thug culture that represents a very real threat to officer safety (and the safety of everyone else, they're called criminals for a reason). On the other hand we have an increasingly out of control police force that see anyone not in blue as their enemy. These cops see themselves as free to harass, humiliate and harm anyone they please at any time, without provocation.

The USA has been decreasing morally since 1956. As a result the underclass has grown and with it the criminal class. Cops have responded in kind and its becoming increasingly difficult to tell the two apart. Now when a middle aged white guy gets pulled over his first thought isn't "I guess its time to get a new light bulb for that tail light". Cops no longer restrain their violence to "that part of town" but feel free to abuse and kill citizens whenever it amuses them to do so. As our society fractures more morally, racially and economically, things will only get worse.

The solution needs to embrace several areas that are politically unpopular and ultimately unworkable. Criminals need to be de-incentivized. This means decriminalizing at a federal level, and regulating at a state level recreational substances. Cops need to be de-escalated and demilitarized. Laws protecting them form prosecution for misconduct need to be rewritten so that bad cops are held accountable for being bad cops. Thirdly the public school system needs to embrace and began teaching Judeo-Christian religious and moral philosophy again. Abington v. Schempp was a mistake and the repercussions have been detrimental to our society as a whole. Besides, they are teaching Islam in the schools now, so equal time for a proven philosophy should be promoted as well.

I don't know how much this would help in the northern states but Denmark has an interesting way of supplementing its law enforcement. Here is a link (NSFW) to an interesting program. Granted some of the guns in the program are bigger than others, but I think we can agree that they are being deployed in a responsible manner.

12/05/2013

When I came home from work last night the temperature outside was -11F. The wind was hardly blowing at all, maybe 4 to 5 mph. I think the low over night was about -18F. That made last nights wind chill factor -31 degrees.

What I'm trying to say is, its cold outside.

We use a pellet stove to supplement our heating. One down side of the model of stove we have is every 24 to 36 hours you have to shut the stove off in order to clean out the ash, or the stove will quit working correctly. It's past time to do that, and I've turned the stove off. I can hear the blower as the stove goes through its cool down process, somehow the house seems colder. The temperature clock that we have, says its not, but I'm still feeling at little chilled.

When I was a boy I read Jack London's short story, "To Build a Fire". That story is fresh in my mind whenever its cold and I need to build a fire. Which brings me to another point. There is something comforting about having a fire. I like camp fires. I like fireplaces. The light cast by a fire makes it seem warmer.

If you investigate it, an all enclosed stove that burns coal or wood, is a more efficient heating device. Even better than those options are heat pumps, gas furnaces or even electric heat. Some how I still enjoy the sight of a fire burning. It seems warmer, more cheerful and inviting than a happily efficient metal box in the basement blowing hot air throughout the house.

If it was up to me, and if my budget and she who also lives in my house, would allow it, I would opt for a soapstone wood stove with a large glass viewing area. I like the radiant heat provided by the soap stone and I would still get to watch my cheery fire.

The pellet stove does have its advantages. It was in the house when we bought it. It is easy to feed, a couple of trips a year to buy pellets and you're done. No endless weekends of cutting wood are required. Cleaning it is easy too, a vac and some glass cleaner and the stove is ready to go again. Since it has a glass window you can watch the fire, at least until it gets caked over with soot. It's not a bad compromise.

In the time it's taken me to type this my stove has finished cooling off. I can clean out the ash now. Outside the temp has come up, and the wind is hardly blowing at all. In the back of my mind I hear Jack saying, "a man must not fail in his first attempt to start a fire".

During the programme, Pastor of Anal Baptist Church, Imphal Rev.PS Mono Anal offered prayer evoking the blessing of the Almighty for peace and communal harmony among the different groups of people living in the area.

Apart from officials of the outpost, the event was also attended by various community leaders of the area.

I gotta think that either there is a translation problem, or this is one gay friendly Baptist Church.

I love north western Montana, its one of the most beautiful places I've been to. I love the combination of Flathead lake and the mountains as well as the orchards. It's one of those places that is beautiful year round. The only thing that concerns me are the stories in the blotter:

Monday 11/25/2013

8:14 a.m. A Kalispell woman asked why the Salvation Army could legally panhandle for money but the homeless couldn’t.

12:16 p.m. There is talk of a loose "wolf" dog in the area of Starlight Road and one resident is worried about the neighborhood chicken population.

2:30 p.m. Reportedly, a Marion woman has been harboring numerous cats that are unable to use their hind legs and appear “wobbly” when they try.

3:53 p.m. A Shady Lane resident saw someone wearing bright orange, walking through the woods with a rifle. The resident was reminded that it is hunting season.

4:15 p.m. A Troutbeck Road resident returned home to find that an intruder had gone through her cupboards and watched pornography on her computer.

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a
German, an Indian, several Americans (including a Southerner, a New Englander,
and a Californian), an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an
Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a
Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, an
Uzbeki, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a
Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an
Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli,
a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a
Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a
Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a
Samoan, an Armenian, an Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a
Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahamian, a Belarussian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a
Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, an Amish, a Romanian, a Chilean, an Eskimo,
a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, an Ecuadorian, a
Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a
Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 47 Africans all walk into a fine
restaurant.

The maître d’ scrutinizes the group one by one and bars their entrance,
saying: